Happy People: A Year in the Taiga (2010)

Director: Werner Herzog and Dmitry Vasyukov

Genre: Documentary

With "Happy People: A Year in the Taiga" Werner Herzog (along with Dmitry Vasyukov and crew) once again ventures into an exotic, distant land; narrating traditional (at times prehistoric) way-of-living of the 300-odd people in the remote village of Bakhta in Siberian Taiga.

The film primarily focuses on village's main breadwinners: 'trappers' who quarry in the thick of below -50 degree winter in the wilderness stretching thousands of square kilometers, across the Yenisei River flowing alongside the village. The village is almost untouched by modernity and highly independent--snow-mobile and chainsaw few of the exceptions. Inaccessible most of the year, village can only be reached by a plane, or a boat in the short-lived, appropriate spring-summer season.  

Herzog/Vasyukov esthetically showcase the authentic 'happiness' a human-being relishes even in absence of technology and materialistic advancements. All you need is a sense of freedom and accomplishment that folks in Taiga mostly come upon by the constantly keeping themselves constructively engaged. Instead of  harming/modifying the nature, they have learned to live in harmony with it--assimilating their lifestyles around four different seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter.

Documenting an entire year in Taiga, the film is kind of divided in four chapters--the four seasons--that can only be best described/felt by seeing. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, below are some screen captures from the film covering the 4-season cycle and the specific chores set around them.   

Spring:

Passing on the conventional wisdom (Ski-making)

      Setting up the base structure of quarry-traps

Smoking the Ski for shape and sturdiness

Canoe for fishing made of local wood

Widening of canoe using fire

Testing the new canoe and green huskies in first waters

 Summer:

Constructing huts for deep winter in the wilderness

Thawing of the river, Yenisei

Inherent tendencies of the Orion kicking in!

Fall: 

Nut gathering squirrel connotes: "Winter is coming"

Night-fisherman: fish is attracted to the fire-light

                   
                         

Storing supplies nearby winter hut, away from Bear's

 reach

Bear hibernating but rats still a threat

Wading upstream: Transporting essentials to the hut

 Winter:

Checking the traps for quarry

Earning his keep, smells prey!

After a hard day's work returning back to a roof that might cave-in under snow

Meanwhile, in the village: Fishing Holes

Returning home for New Year/Christmas

Trappers visit family during festivities, notice the laika running behind the snowmobile--he runs all along the 150 frozen kilometers of the river! After a short stay with family (till Jan 6, Christmas) trapper retreats to his wilderness for a couple more months--to his hut (that is naturally insulated using earth and dry moss) with his best friend.

Thanks to Herzog, this documentary is a chance to somewhat live a dream lifestyle lot of us crave for.

8.5/10